Hamlet

Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Written: c 1600
Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
Publisher: Modern Library (2008 Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository

Introduction

To many, this is the Bard’s greatest tragedy, maybe even his greatest play. A tale of treachery, revenge, love and, above all, madness (real or feigned). It is Shakespeare’s longest play (more than 4,000 lines). There is no sub-plot to distract the reader. Hamlet has more than a third of the lines and he reveals his thoughts to the reader in five famous soliloquies.

What is it about?

The story is a straight forward one. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, encounters his dead father’s ghost who accuses Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle of murder. Claudius has since married Hamlet’s mother Getrude and ascended to the throne. Hamlet is driven mad (or feigns madness) and sets up a play-within-the-play to determine Claudius’ guilt.

Hamlet is a wonderful story filled with well-fleshed out characters from Hamlet himself to Getrude, Claudius and Polonius. These and the other characters in the play speak some of the most unforgettable words ever written in English.

Shakespeare wrote magnificent soliloquies for the Prince of Denmark. Early in the play, Hamlet laments the fact that Gertrude has married Claudius less than 2 months after the King’s death: “frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.146). Then, there is the ‘to be or not to be’ passage, possibly the most famous soliloquy ever written. Finally, in a soliloquy that appears in Quatro but not in Folio, Hamlet finally stops his dithering and resolves to avenge his father’s foul and most unnatural death: “O, from this time forth / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (4.3.105-139)

Besides the soliloquies, Hamlet also has some snappy wordplay. When Claudius calls him “my cousin Hamlet, and my son”, Hamlet says as an aside (his very first line): “A little more than kin and less than kind” (1.2.64). Hamlet agrees that Claudius has become more closely related to him after marrying his mother (ie. kin) but he does not think of Claudius as kindred or affectionate (ie. kind). Later, after he kills Polonius and (apparently) hides the body, Hamlet is asked where he has hidden the body. Hamlet replies, “The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body” (4.2.25). This line is capable of various interpretations, eg. Claudius has a physical body but not true kingship, or Polonius is with the late true king instead of the usurper king Claudius, or Polonius is with God (ie. “King”) instead of Claudius.

The play contains a smattering of the bawdy language that Shakespeare is famous for. Hamlet the character gets to say most of them (eg. 3.2.106-119).

Shakespeare also put some memorable lines in Polonius’ mouth. I especially love the bombastic advice he gives his son Laertes, which includes the admonition “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (1.3.78) and “This above all: to thine own self be true” (1.3.81).

And in Ophelia, Shakespeare has crafted one of his most wretched and pitiful characters. She is young and impressionable and is doomed after Hamlet (whether he does so consciously or in madness) plays with her feelings.


Themes

One of the major talking points of the play is Hamlet's dithering. For a big part of the play, he thinks about killing Claudius but does not act. After he watches a troupe of actors rehearsing, he comments that the actor, who is merely acting, expresses more emotion than himself, who is supposed to be actually suffering:

“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing! No, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by th’ nose? Gives me the lie i’ th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!
Why, I should take it, for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion!
Fie upon’t, foh!”
          (2.2.535-574)

In the next scene, the famous ‘to be or not to be’ passage shows Hamlet was still thinking of doing instead of doing:

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep -
No more - and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.”

          (3.1.62-94)

Even more dramatically, at the midpoint of the play, Hamlet has the chance to kill Claudius while the latter was kneeling (apparently) in prayer. Hamlet declares in another soliloquy: “And now I’ll do’t .... And so am I revenged” (3.3.77-78). Then almost immediately, he lapses into indecisiveness yet again. He reasons that if he kills Claudius during his prayer, he will only be sending Claudius to heaven (a courtesy Claudius did not afford Hamlet’s father). Hamlet convinces himself he should kill Claudius at another time when Claudius is committing some act “That has no relish of salvation in’t” (3.395).

What about the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though. Also, the covers are not very attractive.


Finally ...

My top 5 Shakespeare tragedies:

1. Hamlet
2. Romeo and Juliet
3. Macbeth
4. Othello
5. King Lear